Video Memory > Ram

[LittleLizard]

Basically, what the title says.

I have the system specified in the specs and have bought a GTX 750 Ti with 2gb memory. I am waiting on some 8GB sticks to be delivered now.

My question is, what would happen if i installed the 2gb video card with only 2gb of Ram? There would no be adressing space left for the OS, not even talking about playing any games. Some boards have the feature on the BIOS to limit the memory allocation for memory (talking VGA cards, not IGFX) but mine does not. Soo... any ideas???

 

[LittleLizard]

Thats all the proof I need

 

[Aquinus]

Basically, what the title says.

I have the system specified in the specs and have bought a GTX 750 Ti with 2gb memory. I am waiting on some 8GB sticks to be delivered now.

My question is, what would happen if i installed the 2gb video card with only 2gb of Ram? There would no be adressing space left for the OS, not even talking about playing any games. Some boards have the feature on the BIOS to limit the memory allocation for memory (talking VGA cards, not IGFX) but mine does not. Soo... any ideas???

No, you're understanding this incorrectly. GPU memory is memory mapped I/O as it gets an address range that maps to the PCI-E device, that does not mean that it uses 2GB of system memory as the 2GB of system memory would be in its own memory space. You would have a total of 4GB of addressable space with 2GB of system memory and 2GB of GPU memory.

 

[EarthDog]

What is the proof you need? A double post?

 

[Mussels]

there was a deleted post.


the correct answer is "your video card will be crippled, not your system ram"

 

[Aquinus]

there was a deleted post.


the correct answer is "your video card will be crippled, not your system ram"

No... where did that come from? The correct answer is that they have no bearing on each other, other than the fact that 2GB isn't much system memory to work with in the first place, but how much system memory you have doesn't limit how much GPU memory is addressable or vise versa unless you're running a 32-bit OS, in which case you're limited by a 32-bit address space so you won't be addressing more than 4GB of memory mapped addresses anyways. Either way, I think the OP was just confused with respect to how computers work.

 

[Mussels]

DX9 apps mirror video memory into system memory, even aero does it in windows - it was one of the key features of DX10 and newer, that they no longer required it to be duplicated.

In his case, the max amount of usable Vram would be reduced (or thrown to the page file crippling performance) until he gets more system ram. simple as that.

 

[Toothless]

Do tell how your idea plays out because I'm sure it won't work.

I had an idea that (by theory) a system can be ran off of a single card. A graphics card has memory, video output, "processors" and requires a power source. While we currently don't have a real way of addressing the resources there, it may be possible.

For now OP, your theory is false until the day it comes into action and is efficient.

 

[Jstn7477]

I think my ASUS P5W DH Deluxe (i975X board that had a 4GB memory limit) lost addressable main RAM capacity with added video cards. I'm pretty sure I got it down to 2GB at POST with a GTX 470 1280MB + GTX 460 768MB, but eventually settled for two GTX 460 768MB cards to reduce the amount of RAM lost. Not keen on how Windows deals with it though if there are no hardware restrictions such as the one I just listed.